Day / July 19, 2016

After years wasted as the press and politicians covered secondary matters, the major media have finally stepped up to address America’s deepest, most damaging problem. I’m talking about alleged plagiarism. And it’s about damn time.

While serious problems fester, the media and politicians waste precious time and energy covering the massacres of police officers by black militants and the slaughter of Bastille Day revelers by Islamic terrorists. Is it any wonder that 70 percent of Americans consider the country on the wrong track? Our priorities have been horribly disordered.

Now, though, things are changing. Finally, the press has grown the courage to relegate grieving police widows and crippled Frenchmen to the back page where they belong. We can be done with Hillary Clinton’s petty crimes and the Benghazi mothers she lied to.

CNN and New York Times, among others, now have the courage to make room for news that actually changes lives: the use of similar words without proper attribution in public oratory.

Plagiarism has always been a uniquely divisive subject in the American culture, owing to our history of declaring independence using the words of John Locke. Because of that, reporters and politicians loathe touching this “third rail” of American literature. And while the press and the pols squander resources on boondoggles like Islamic terrorism and China’s threats to start a world war, dozens of intellectual property owners go without decent credits. But that all changed last night.

We owe a deep debt of gratitude to America’s journalists. They’ve finally confronted the slight that dare not speak its name. Thank God for our vibrant, free, and neutral press, willing to tackle issues that have been until now only whispers behind closed doors.

Making America safe again, making America work again, making America first again, and making America one again seem so small and selfish when one woman’s words sound much like another’s. Our new willingness to address the problem of plagiarism only highlights how shallow we have been, worrying about 3,400 murdered blacks in Chicago and a few dozen police officers stalked and killed simply for being cops. So African-American youth unemployment is nearly 50 percent? To paraphrase Hillary Clinton: Who. Cares?!

You probably feel as ashamed as I do for even mentioning terrorism or a nuclear Iran while someone’s footnotes were out of order.

If nothing else, the 2016 Republican convention will be remembered as the moment America got its priorities straight.

P.S. I tried really hard not to plagiarize anyone in my new book, but with so many writers and so few words, anything’s possible.